eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY ) on a roll since hiring John Donahue as CEO in 2008, with
the stock up 30% in the past year, and there's reason to think the good times
will continue. Donahue laid out a strategy earlier this year that has eBay
focusing on four sales arenas: local, mobile, digital, and social. The company
has made big strides in its local and mobile initiatives it acquired local
deals start-up Milo back in December and as well as Where.com in April. Now its
moving to its social projects. eBay just hired former Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO )
and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) community honcho Don Bradford as its VP of social
commerce. Like every other business on the web, eBay has been toying with social
networking features for four years, testing out a number of projects like the
eBay neighborhoods service that gathers members into communities around certain
products as well as tools for its shoppers and merchants that let users like
auctions on Facebook. But eBay has never found a sure-fire way to marry its
addictive auction business with the obsessive behavior inspired by Facebook and
Twitter. Here are three strategies Bradford and his team can explore to make
sure social initiatives help keep eBay growing. Acquisition While more spending
might make shareholders nervous, one or two more buys to secure companies with
solid footholds in social media makes sense. One potential buy: UberMedia. The
developer behind hugely popular Twitter apps for smartphones by Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL ), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ), and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM ) is a hot
commodity right now, valued at around $40 million , cheap compared to the $135
million purchase of Where.com. UberMedias business is solid on its own, but eBay
could leverage its technology to bring its auctions to Twitter in any number of
ways to get consumers excited. Avoid starting a new social network In the past
18 months, some of the biggest technology and web businesses in the U.S. have
tried to launch their own social networks and most have failed miserably. Google
is still taking drubbings for Google Buzz and Apples only real misstep in recent
memory is the weak Ping social network tied into iTunes. eBay shouldnt pour any
resources into creating new networking tools. The very nature of its business as
a community of merchants and customers negates the need to build something else
with like buttons. Strengthen the partnership with Facebook eBay already has a
relationship with Facebook sellers can share their items via their Facebook page
by allowing the network to link with their eBay account. However, given
Facebooks moves to grow itself as a shopping destination in the past year, an
opportunity exists for both companies to allow eBay auctions to be hosted and
accessed directly through Facebook. Nothing would get consumers frothing quite
like seeing auction updates in their Facebook news feed. That sort of initiative
could make eBays social commerce division a valuable asset this year. As of this
writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named
here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of
InvestorPlace on Facebook.
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